Kill the Honkai / Going Home ...

Sure enough, just as Ishiu had expected, after struggling for a long time, Asakura Miyuki ultimately could not bring herself to do it. She let out a pained shriek and violently slammed the girl to the ground.

"Get out! Get out of here!!!"

She wailed in agony as she clutched her head, curling up against the wall.

The red patterns on her body, however, kept growing more numerous.

Ishiu walked over. He crouched in front of Asakura Miyuki, placed a hand on her head, and activated his skill: Headpat.

It was a skill the system had rewarded him with during a past mission. When he touched a member of the opposite sex's hair, it made them feel happy and safe.

Ishiu had used it on Seele once before, but the effect had been far too strong. Seele had clung to him for a full three hours, leaving his hand practically callused before she finally let him go, glowing with satisfaction.

He had never used the skill again after that, but using it now should help ease some of her pain.

Sure enough, anything produced by the system was top-quality.

Under Ishiu's Headpat, Asakura Miyuki immediately felt the ever-present pain lessen considerably. The impulsive thoughts and desires that had constantly plagued her mind also began to fade away.

Her complexion gradually returned to normal, but the traces of Honkai Energy corrosion on her body continued to deepen.

"Your name is... Ishiu, right? Thank you for being willing to listen to me talk for so long." She raised her head and looked at Ishiu with her now crimson eyes. Yet all the madness in her gaze had vanished, replaced by overwhelming gratitude. "Thank you... really."

"Kiana... is there still any way to save her?" Ishiu pursed his lips, unable to bear looking into the girl's eyes.

P.S.: Recommending a book.

"Jougo Tokiwa of the Silly Chat Group Refuses Tragedy"

The author is a very cute little boy~

Kill the Honkai

"She's been corroded by Honkai Energy too deeply..." Kiana bit her lip and looked at Asakura Miyuki, whose madness had faded as she curled up in the corner like an abandoned kitten, left to face her end alone. Kiana felt terrible too.

Before this, she had killed quite a few Zombies, but those had already lost consciousness, leaving behind only the instinct to kill. They had not been ordinary girls who had been bullied, snapped, and then chosen to give up revenge.

"Is there really no way?" Ishiu clenched his fists. Looking at Asakura Miyuki, he could not help thinking of Seele, Bronya, and everyone at the Orphanage.

Would they one day become like this too?

Ishiu did not dare think any further. That image was too cruel, so cruel that it made him want to run away from it.

He wanted to save Asakura Miyuki not only because her tragic experience resonated with him, but also because she reminded him of everyone at the Orphanage.

If one day they were corroded by Honkai Energy too, and he could only helplessly watch them meet an end even more painful than death, Ishiu would rather die before them!

But Kiana merely gave a bitter smile and shook her head. "It's impossible. There's only one outcome for someone corroded by the Honkai. Unless she has some trait that resists Honkai Energy—but clearly, she doesn't. So there's no way we can save her. What, are you going to kill the Honkai Energy corroding her?"

Kiana had only said it casually, but to Ishiu, it was like a bolt from the blue, opening a path straight to the heavens in his mind.

That was right! He could kill the Honkai Energy!

For anyone else, that would undoubtedly be an absurd fantasy. But for Ishiu, it was possible.

Because he possessed a pair of eyes called the Dead Apostle Ancestor.

Although he still did not fully understand those eyes, he had already grasped their basic function.

As long as it was something he understood and could kill, whether matter or energy, he should be able to kill it.

No sooner thought than done.

Ishiu closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his ice-blue mystic eyes descended upon the world.

"Ishiu, your eyes?" Kiana stared at his suddenly changed eyes in surprise. If she had not watched him the whole time, she would have thought he had put in colored contacts without her noticing.

But Ishiu had no time to pay attention to her. He turned his gaze toward Asakura Miyuki. Within those mystic eyes, Death Lines symbolizing endings covered every corner of her body, making her look like a ceramic doll pieced together from cracks.

But those were not what Ishiu wanted to see.

What he wanted to see were the Death Lines of Honkai Energy, not Asakura Miyuki's Death Lines.

He should be able to see them. He had to see them...

At that moment, the world seemed to slow to an extreme in Ishiu's eyes. He immersed all his focus into his mystic eyes. To see a deeper level of death, he had to understand these eyes.

In a daze, Ishiu felt as though he had arrived at the entrance to the Sea of Quantum. He stood upon floating stone steps, with a boundless abyss beneath him.

He reached his hand toward that abyss. In an instant, endless information flooded wildly into his mind—countless different kinds of death.

Killed, drowned, suffocated, trampled, starved, and...

Those deaths seemed endless. At that moment, all of them poured into Ishiu's mind. An ordinary person would have been unable to withstand even one-thousandth of a second of that immense influx of death and would have exploded outright.

But Ishiu did not feel overwhelmed in the slightest. He was like a rock standing in the sea; no matter how fiercely the surging waves battered him, he remained rooted in place, unmoved by even an inch.

Ishiu did not know what kind of state he was in, but he felt like a sponge, constantly absorbing all that information about death.

At last, just as he seemed unable to take any more and his mind began to blur, his consciousness returned to the real world.

"Ishiu, why are you bleeding?!"

Kiana cried out beside him. Ishiu, who had been perfectly fine moments ago, suddenly had bright red blood seeping from his nose and ears.

Ishiu only felt his head becoming heavy and muddled. The enormous amount of information he had inexplicably received had taken root in his mind, as if it had become an irreplaceable part of his memories.

Then the world before his eyes began to change. There were more Death Lines than before.

But Ishiu no longer had the energy to observe those changes. He stared fixedly at Asakura Miyuki's body as line after line of Death Lines appeared before his eyes.

Not this one, nor that one... Found it!

Ishiu's eyes lit up. Amid the countless Death Lines, he finally found one that did not belong to Asakura Miyuki. It was the Honkai.

Though that Death Line was very short and blurry, as though it might vanish at any moment, Ishiu had seen it. How could he let it go?

He reached into his clothes and pulled out Wolf Fang. A flash of cold light followed, and the sharp dagger pierced straight through Asakura Miyuki's body. Yet she did not bleed a single drop, nor did she show any pain.

Because Ishiu's strike had not cut her.

The dagger struck that special Death Line with perfect accuracy. The power of ending effortlessly killed the Honkai Energy.

The red line-like patterns covering Asakura Miyuki's body gradually faded, and her skin slowly regained some color from its corpse-like pallor.

"Uh..."

Kiana rubbed her eyes in disbelief, thinking she was hallucinating. But no matter how hard she rubbed them, the sight before her did not change at all.

The girl who had clearly been corroded by Honkai Energy just moments ago now leaned quietly against the wall with her eyes closed, as if nothing had happened and she had merely fallen asleep.

"Take me... away." Ishiu pressed a hand to his head. It felt as though his skull were about to explode, as violent pain surged from the depths of his brain and made him want to bash his head against the wall.

"O-okay." Kiana could not make sense of the situation either, but it seemed the matter had been resolved. After looking at Asakura Miyuki a few more times and confirming there was no longer any Honkai Energy reaction from her, she grabbed Ishiu and ran out of the restroom.

(P.S.: To avoid any misunderstandings, let me clarify: the Honkai Ishiu killed here was only energy like Mana. It does not mean he was so absurdly powerful that he could kill the Will of Honkai. Since the Honkai Energy was inside Asakura Miyuki's body and had already fused with her, that was why it was so difficult for him to kill.)

Going Home

"Ishiu, how exactly did you do that?"

After leaving the Teaching Building, Kiana pulled Ishiu over to sit on some secluded steps and finally could not hold back her curiosity any longer.

After all, she had never even heard of turning a Zombie that had been corroded by Honkai Energy back to normal. Her lousy dad had said that once someone was corroded by Honkai Energy, death was absolutely inevitable. Yet Ishiu had accomplished that impossibility right before her eyes. If Ishiu had not been in such poor condition right now, she would have been shaking him with excitement.

"Mm... It's troublesome to explain. You can think of it as one of my abilities." Ishiu half-squinted as his fingers continuously rubbed his head. He no longer felt as much pain, but he was still very uncomfortable.

"An ability?" Kiana repeated the words several times. Once she learned it was Ishiu's ability, she did not ask further. After all, that involved someone else's privacy. No matter how carefree she was, she still understood basic etiquette.

"Then the blood coming from your nose and ears earlier—was that because you overused your ability?"

"Yeah, something like that."

Ishiu let out a breath. It had hurt terribly at the time, but now that he was gradually recovering, he no longer felt it was such a big deal. Besides, his mind now contained some information about death, and the feeling was rather strange.

"Alright, now that everything's handled, we should hurry back to the rental." After resting for a while and feeling less uncomfortable, Ishiu made the suggestion.

"Mm." Kiana nodded, but hesitation soon appeared on her face again. "By the way, what will happen to Asakura Miyuki after this?"

"Who knows?" Ishiu pressed his lips together. "Since you said ordinary people don't know about the Honkai, then to them, what happened just now was only a nightmare. It may have caused some psychological damage, but that's the retribution those people deserved. As for Asakura Miyuki... we can help her for a while, but not forever. In the end, she has to stand up on her own if she doesn't want others to bully her. Still, after what happened today, those girls probably won't dare bully her again."

"Mm, you're right." Kiana nodded in understanding, then looked at Ishiu with some surprise. "You little brat, I didn't expect you to be so young but talk like you know everything. Looks like I underestimated you."

"Is that supposed to be praise or an insult?" Ishiu said speechlessly.

"Haha, of course it's praise~" Kiana immediately burst out laughing.

After chatting and joking for a bit, the two found a place with no one around and changed back into their clothes, then climbed out of the school while avoiding the crowds.

Afterward, with the financial support of Mei, the little rich girl, Ishiu and Kiana successfully rented that room and even had a little money left over.

However, they argued for quite a while over how to divide the room. There was only one bedroom, so they debated ownership of it for ages. By the time the sky had begun to darken, they finally managed to reach an agreement.

One person would sleep in the bedroom each day, while the other would sleep on the couch.

It was a fair arrangement, and both Ishiu and Kiana could accept it.

After settling the room arrangement, Ishiu checked the time and said to Kiana, who had unceremoniously sprawled across the bedroom bed in a starfish pose and was enjoying herself, "I'm going to work. What are you going to do?"

"Then go. My place works on a shift system, and I don't have work today. I'm going to sleep for a while. Today wore me out." Kiana buried her head in the pillow, let out a contented groan, and waved at Ishiu.

"..." Ishiu really wanted to complain. How exactly had she gotten tired today? Hadn't he been the one actually handling the Honkai incident? He had bled and still had to go to work, while she was lying comfortably at home sleeping. This life was impossible!

For some reason, Ishiu had the illusion that the wife was out working while the husband only knew how to eat, drink, and play at home.

Damn it!

He patted his cheeks, threw that dangerous thought out of his head, then walked out and casually shut the door behind him.

His part-time job at the convenience store went as usual. After work, chatting with Miss Mei made Ishiu feel quite relaxed. Raiden Mei had made him another bento today, and it was just as delicious as before.

Miss Mei had even taken the initiative to ask whether he had enough money, saying she could lend him more if he did not. That unusual enthusiasm made Ishiu somewhat unaccustomed to it.

He did not know whether it was just his imagination, but he always felt Raiden Mei's attitude toward him was a little too good... Still, he was not narcissistic enough to think she liked him. In the end, he could only attribute it to his being too handsome and truly making a living off his face! (Laugh)

After finishing his chat with Raiden Mei, Ishiu returned to the home they had rented that day. He unlocked the door with his key, but the room was completely dark. Ishiu turned on the lights and called out a few times, but no one answered. He went to take a look in the bedroom, and sure enough, that white-haired furball was still asleep in bed.

Kiana had not taken off her clothes to sleep, so Ishiu did not need to avoid looking. Still, this silly girl's sleeping face was rather funny. She was even drooling, and he wondered what sweet dream she was having.

Seeing that she was sleeping soundly, Ishiu did not wake her. He turned and left the bedroom, heading to the bathroom to wash his face.

Then he returned to the living room and dropped onto the couch. Just as he was about to take out his phone and chat with Miss Mei for a while, his gaze drifted toward the bedroom. As if he had remembered something, he hesitated briefly before heading straight out the door.

Ishiu went to the supermarket. Fortunately, it was very close to the apartment building, only a few minutes' walk away.

He bought some eggs, vegetables, fruit, and meat, planning to make Kiana dinner later.

Although he had already eaten, he had no idea when that idiot Kiana would wake up. She would definitely be hungry once she did, so he would consider it an act of kindness. After all, he was not only handsome but also kind-hearted, right?

After buying everything, Ishiu paid at the register. Because his spending had reached a certain amount, he received two chances at a prize draw.

Many supermarkets held this kind of event to encourage spending. The grand prizes looked incredibly tempting—such as a two-day, one-night hot spring trip, a microwave, or a laptop—but most prizes were still tissues.

Ishiu did not have much hope. He casually drew twice and, sure enough, got tissues and a small trinket.

It was a plastic ring. It was entirely blue, had no patterns, and looked like a perfectly ordinary toy. Ishiu casually stuffed it into his pocket.

From Now On, You Cook, I'll Do the Dishes

When he returned home, Kiana was still not awake. Ishiu carried the ingredients into the kitchen, turned on the gas stove, and began cooking.

Ishiu's cooking was average. His cooking in his previous life had been fairly good, but after being reborn, he had rarely entered the kitchen. With so many girls at the Orphanage, cooking was not something that ever fell to him.

Still, even though his skills had gotten rusty, he could at least make simple stir-fried pork with green peppers and egg fried rice without any problem.

As Ishiu busied himself in the kitchen, the scent of food quickly drifted out, slipping through the gap in the bedroom door.

The scent had become faint by the time it traveled that far, but Kiana's nose was unusually sensitive. Even while asleep, the aroma made her stomach rumble.

"Mmm... my roast chicken..." Kiana muttered in her sleep as she groggily opened her eyes.

She had just dreamed that she was eating a lavish feast. She had been happily holding a roast chicken and eating to her heart's content when her own growling stomach woke her up.